Joanna On The Trail

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Getting There

After dropping Lee at the airport this morning, I had some time to kill before meeting my group, so naturally I went to the flagship REI store in Denver. I could have spent hours there, but I had to be disciplined and stick to my list. No room in my duffels for impulse buys.

For lunch I made my way to Tennyson Street in the Berkeley neighborhood, to Cozy Cottage, then picked up a six-pack at Small Batch Liquors so I could have a celebratory post-hike beer each evening.

Then I headed to the Wooly Mammoth Park & Ride in Golden to meet the crew, arriving about an hour early for our 3pm meet-up. By 2:30 I really needed to find a bathroom, so I drove to the nearby Launch coffee shop. Feeling obligated to buy something if I was going to use their facilities, I ordered a Lariat Loop smoothie — banana, peanut butter, chocolate, cinnamon, milk. Sooooo good.

Meeting the Crew

Back at the lot, the rest of the group was arriving. We loaded our bags and ourselves into the van for the 15-minute drive to Bear Creek Lake Campground — not exactly remote, with a Home Depot visible from our campsite, but functional for night one.

I pitched my tent, having only done so once before, so “clumsy” would be a generous description of my technique. Then we gathered in the “living room” tent for chips, salsa, and a briefing on what to expect.

The setup is impressively organized: two trucks and a passenger van, with a kitchen tent and a “living room” tent at each campsite, the latter ringed with camp chairs and stocked with a coffee/tea station and coolers for shared drinks and personal drinks (mostly post-hike beers). There’s also a shower tent and fresh water tanks in the trucks for filling bottles and bladders.

In terms of personnel, there is a trip lead and four guides. The guides rotate roles in teams of two: lead or sweep guide on the trail, or working the swing crew, which handles moving camp, cooking, and other logistics.

These people clearly know what they’re doing.

The Cast of Characters

We went around and did introductions, and I want to remember everyone, so here they are:

The Staff

Dan and Emily own Colorado Mountain Expeditions (CME), which holds the Colorado Trail Foundation’s trekking contract. Dan is with us all week as trip lead; Emily we won’t see again until we’re back at the Wooly Mammoth on Friday.

Chris is the newest guide on the team this season, though an experienced guide overall. He lives in his van, is from Florida, and has an “epic beard” (based on comments from thru-hikers later in the week).

Ian is in his second season with CME and is also a seasoned guide. He’s from Austin but moved to Colorado a few years ago, and is currently in school to become a mental health counselor.

Sam has been guiding with CME for a few years, it sounds like. He’s from Pennsylvania, lives in Durango now, and also works at Ski Barn. Like Ian, he’s climbed all 58 14ers in Colorado, and now he’s working on the 13ers (there are over 10x as many 13ers and 14ers!).

At 21 years old, Chase is somehow already in his 6th season guiding with CME — longer than Dan and Emily have owned the company. He’s heading into his senior year at CU Boulder, studying aerospace engineering.

Lanae is a photography intern from Fairmont State University in West Virginia, here to capture photos and video to help improve the CME website.

Fellow Hikers

Greg lives near Loveland, loves dogs about as much as I do, and loves food even more — he asks “how was the grub?” every time anyone tells a story. He’s retired now, formerly a geologist and Army reservist.

Abby lives outside Denver and works in marketing analytics — the only one of us still working. She has an adorable 10-month-old corgi named Rocket, who we’ll get to meet on Friday.

Missy and Tom are the only couple in the group. They live in Tucson but are moving in the spring, location TBD. Big outdoor adventurers — multiple Grand Canyon hiking and rafting trips between them.

Joanne knows Missy and Tom from a previous trip. She lives in Aurora now, has a cabin in the mountains, and was a veterinarian in Florida. We often found ourselves both answering when someone called one of our names.

Mark lives near Omaha and has actually thru-hiked the entire CT before, but his family wants him doing guided trips now that he’s getting older. He’s quite shy, and goes by the trail name “2Quiet.”

Jim is from Tennessee and retired last year from a career in PR and crisis management. At the end of this week, he’s continuing on his own to thru-hike the rest of the trail.

Trail Talk and Dinner

Over dinner — grilled cheese, quinoa soup, salad bar which unfortunately I didn’t eat much of because of the aforementioned smoothie — Dan walked us through “Trail Talk,” the nightly briefing covering tomorrow’s plan: whether we’re moving camp, wake-up/breakfast/departure times, travel time to and from the trailheads, trail distance and elevation, terrain description, and which guides are leading and sweeping. The week’s plan is all summarized on a small whiteboard too, for easy reference.

After dinner, it was time to make tomorrow’s lunch. The guides build sandwiches to order — PBJ or deli meat and cheese. I went with my usual, two PBJs (one grape, one strawberry). I didn’t even have to tell the guides the right way to make the PBJs: peanut butter on both sides so the gobs of jelly in the middle don’t soak into the bread. Each sandwich must have weighed close to two pounds! There’s also an enormous snack selection: protein bars, trail mix, meat sticks, cheese, fruit, candy, electrolyte powder, and more. We each got a lunch bag with our name on it, loaded it up, and dropped it in a basket that gets stored overnight in the truck — bear precautions.

Tomorrow: Segment 1, Waterton Canyon to South Platte Canyon. 16.5 miles, 2,830 feet of elevation gain. The real journey begins.